In this biography Anthony Everitt brings to life the world of ancient Rome in its glorious heyday. Cicero squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was the master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents' sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a terrible gossip, and a genius of political manipulation, Cicero was Rome's most revered politician, one of the greatest statesmen of all time. Accessible to us through unguarded letters written to his best friend, Atticus, Cicero emerges as a witty and resourceful political manipulator, the most eloquent witness to the last days of Republican Rome.

John Adams said of Cicero, "All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined." Voltaire said of Cicero, "He taught us how to think." And yet Anthony Everitt's authoritative yet accessible work is the first one-volume biography of the Roman statesman in over 25 years. He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents' sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome's most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life here as a witty and cunning political operator.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "An excellent introduction to a critical period in the history of Rome. Cicero comes across much as he must have lived: reflective, charming and rather vain."--The Wall Street Journal "All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined."--John Adams He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for his ruthless disputations. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome's most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times.  In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday--when senators were endlessly filibustering legislation and exposing one another's sexual escapades to discredit the opposition. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life as a witty and cunning political operator, the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome. Praise for Cicero " [Everitt makes] his subject--brilliant, vain, principled, opportunistic and courageous--come to life after two millennia."--The Washington Post " Gripping . . . Everitt combines a classical education with practical expertise. . . . He writes fluidly."--The New York Times "In the half-century before the assassination of Julius Caesar . . . Rome endured a series of crises, assassinations, factional bloodletting, civil wars and civil strife, including at one point government by gang war. This period, when republican government slid into dictatorship, is one of history's most fascinating, and one learns a great deal about it in this excellent and very readable biography."--The Plain Dealer "Riveting . . . a clear-eyed biography . . . Cicero's times . . . offer vivid lessons about the viciousness that can pervade elected government."--Chicago Tribune "Lively and dramatic . . . By the book's end, he's managed to put enough flesh on Cicero's old bones that you care when the agents of his implacable enemy, Mark Antony, kill him."--Los Angeles Times

"All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined."--John Adams He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents' sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome's most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind. In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator. Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus' famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar's dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny. Anthony Everitt's biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics--where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another's sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories--about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on--make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste. Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome. On Cicero: "He taught us how to think."--Voltaire "I tasted the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense of a man." --Edward Gibbon "Who was Cicero: a great speaker or a demagogue?" --Fidel Castro "From the Hardcover edition."

A portrait of the Roman politician describes the life and times of the ancient statesman, based on the witty and candid letters that Cicero wrote to his friend Atticus in which he described the events and personalities that shaped the final days of Republican Rome.

"In this biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political orator." "Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus' famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Cataline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Ceasar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar's dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in the resistance to tyranny." "Cicero was a wily political orator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of the Republican Rome."--BOOK JACKET.

"This is the biography of a brilliant orator and writer, and a politician who twice held the reins of power." "Cicero's speeches and ideas have influenced European civilized values for two thousand years. Personally, he is accessible to us in his hundreds of letters, many of them to his dear friend Atticus. We can follow his busy life as a lawyer and politician, and the historic events in which he took part, from day to day (sometimes from hour to hour) as he nervously prepares a speech to deliver in the Forum or to the Senate, detects the supposedly incorruptible Brutus in a financial scam, puts a stop to a sexual escapade of the young Mark Antony, steadies Rome at a moment of acute vulnerability following Julius Caesar's assassination, vainly tries to prevent civil war ... or at more private moments, as he entertains dinner parties with his wit or irons out a problem with his wayward nephew." "In this account of Cicero's career, from his provincial origins to his tragic end, as the Republican cause he revered crashed round his ears, Anthony Everitt makes full use of Cicero's own words and those of his contemporaries."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Biography & Autobiography. History. Politics. Nonfiction. "Anthony Everitt is a brilliant guide to the intricacies of Roman politics... Everitt has written a book which is unobtrusively crammed with fascinating information about Roman life and customs, splendidly clear and coherent in its narrative and altogether convincing in its portraiture.". "We know more about Cicero than about almost any other figure of antiquity. We know so much about him, thanks to the happy chance which has seen so much of his correspondence preserved, that it is possible to write the sort of biography of Cicero that one might write about someone from, say, the nineteenth century. Anthony Everitt has done just that, sympathetically and very well. This is an engrossing book, written lucidly for the general reader, and one that only a foolish expert would disdain.". "Of all the arts, that of politics has advanced least since the days of Greece and Rome. This week's new biography of Rome's most famous politician by Anthony Everitt tries to answer the question, why?...Cicero mastered the essence of politics. He preached the difference between authority and power. He was an orator who wrote poetry, a politician who read history, ruthless yet able to articulate the demands of clemency, democracy and the rights of free men under law...If good government is rooted in history and history in biography, Cicero is the man of the hour.". "In the course of Cicero's long life, he made several powerful enemies, often through his own witty put-downs, and he was accused of everything from cowardice and self-importance to histrionics, homosexuality, and incest. But the great majority of his contemporaries--and of course posterity itself--were much kinder to Cicero, and this engrossing new biography by Anthony Everitt does a superb job of explaining why...Cicero's political life forms the real backbone of this book...As an explicator, Everitt is admirably informative and free from breathlessness. He has a sophisticated conception of character, too, including a willingness--so crucial in biographers--to embrace contradictions.". "Mr. Everitt introduces the man graciously to a new generation, and will endear him anew to all those who never grasped the sense, let alone the beauty, of that multi-clausal prose.". "Everitt is an attentive biographer who continuously rehearses and refines his account of the motives of his subject...His achievement is to have replaced the austere classroom effigy with an altogether rounder, more awkward and human person.". HTML:

"All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined."
--John Adams

He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents' sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome's most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind.

In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.

Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus' famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar's dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny.

Anthony Everitt's biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics--where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another's sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories--about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on--make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.

Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.

On Cicero:

"He taught us how to think."
--Voltaire

"I tasted the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense of a man."
--Edward Gibbon

"Who was Cicero: a great speaker or a demagogue?"
--Fidel Castro

From the Hardcover edition.

.

This biographical account describes Cicero's career from his provincial origins through to his tragic end as the Roman Republic crashed around him. Throughout the text Anthony Everitt makes full use of Cicero's own words and those of his contemporaries.

A biography of Roman politician Cicero, drawing from his speeches and letters to his close friend Atticus to trace his activities as military leader, political advisor, and defender of freedom.

- John Adams said of Cicero, "All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined." Voltaire said of Cicero, "He taught us how to think." And yet Anthony Everitt's authoritative yet accessible work is the first one-volume biography of the Roman statesman in over 25 years. - "Using Cicero's letters to his good friend Atticus, among other sources, Everitt recreates the fascinating world of political intrigue, sexual decadence and civil unrest of Republican Rome . Everitt's first book is a brilliant study that captures Cicero's internal struggles and insecurities as well as his external political successes."-Publishers Weekly (starred review) - "Comprehensive, accessible survey of the personal and political life of lawyer, politician, philosopher, and crank Marcus Tullius Cicero . Masterfully lucid and compelling; sure to be required reading in the Cicero canon."-Kirkus Reviews

"The side that knows when to fight and when not will take the victory. There are roadways not to be traveled, armies not to be attacked, walled cities not to be assaulted." --Sun-Tzu We live in dangerous times, when a new kind of leadership is required. Visionary and ruthlessly strategic, Warrior Politics extracts the best of the wisdom of the ages for modern leaders who are faced with the complex life-and-death challenges of today's world--and determined to win. Sun-Tzu urges leaders to "plan and calculate like a hungry man." Machiavelli defines a policy not by its excellence but by its outcome. Churchill derives his greatness from his imagination of history. Livy shows that the vigor to face down adversaries must ultimately come from pride in our own past achievements. "Never mind if they call your caution timidity, your wisdom sloth, your generosity weakness," he writes. "It is better that a wise enemy should fear you than that foolish friends should praise." "Men often oppose a thing merely because they have no agency in planning it," Alexander Hamilton says, "or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike." Replete with maxims, warnings, examples from history, and shrewd recommendations, Warrior Politics wrests from the past the lessons we need to arm ourselves for the present. It offers an invaluable template for any decision-maker--in foreign policy or in business--faced with high stakes and inadequate knowledge of a mine-filled terrain. As we gear ourselves up for a new kind of war, no book is more prescient, more shrewd, or more essential.

-- The Wall Street Journal -- Praise for -- — -- —The Plain Dealer —Los Angeles Times.

Biography & Autobiography. History. Politics. Nonfiction. "Anthony Everitt is a brilliant guide to the intricacies of Roman politics... Everitt has written a book which is unobtrusively crammed with fascinating information about Roman life and customs, splendidly clear and coherent in its narrative and altogether convincing in its portraiture.". "Of all the arts, that of politics has advanced least since the days of Greece and Rome. This week's new biography of Rome's most famous politician by Anthony Everitt tries to answer the question, why?...Cicero mastered the essence of politics. He preached the difference between authority and power. He was an orator who wrote poetry, a politician who read history, ruthless yet able to articulate the demands of clemency, democracy and the rights of free men under law...If good government is rooted in history and history in biography, Cicero is the man of the hour.". "Mr. Everitt introduces the man graciously to a new generation, and will endear him anew to all those who never grasped the sense, let alone the beauty, of that multi-clausal prose.". "Everitt is an attentive biographer who continuously rehearses and refines his account of the motives of his subject...His achievement is to have replaced the austere classroom effigy with an altogether rounder, more awkward and human person.". HTML:

April 1, 2002
Using Cicero's letters to his good friend Atticus, among other sources, Everitt recreates the fascinating world of political intrigue, sexual decadence and civil unrest of Republican Rome. Against this backdrop, he offers a lively chronicle of Cicero's life. Best known as Rome's finest orator and rhetorician, Cicero (103 –43 B.C.) situated himself at the center of Roman politics. By the time he was 30, Cicero became a Roman senator, and 10 years later he was consul. Opposing Julius Caesar and his attempt to form a new Roman government, Cicero remained a thorn in Caesar's side until the emperor's assassination. Cicero supported Pompey's attempts during Caesar's reign to bring Rome back to republicanism. Along the way, Cicero put down conspiracies, won acquittal for a man convicted of parricide, challenged the dictator Sulla with powerful rhetoric about the decadence of Sulla's regime and wrote philosophical treatises. Everitt deftly shows how Cicero used his oratorical skills to argue circles around his opponents. More important, Everitt portrays Cicero as a man born at the wrong time. While Cicero vainly tried to find better men to run government and better laws to keep them in order, Republican Rome was falling down around him, never to return to the glory of Cicero's youth. A first-rate complement to Elizabeth Rawson's Cicero
or T.N. Mitchell's monumental two-volume biography, Everitt's first book is a brilliant study that captures Cicero's internal struggles and insecurities as well as his external political successes. Maps.

. HTML:"All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined."
—John Adams
He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents' sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome's most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind.
In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.
Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus' famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar's dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny.
Anthony Everitt's biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics—where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another's sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories—about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on—make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.
Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.
On Cicero:
"He taught us how to think."
—Voltaire
"I tasted the beauties of language, I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his precepts and examples the public and private sense of a man."
—Edward Gibbon
"Who was Cicero: a great speaker or a demagogue?"
—Fidel Castro
From the Hardcover edition..

Presents the life of Marcus Tullius Circero focusing on his youth, marriage, daughter, political career as a lawyer and statesman, Roman friendships, and more.

The author plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday-when senators were endlessly filibustering legislation and exposing one another's sexual escapades to discredit the opposition. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life as a witty and cunning political operator, the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome.

Cicero, a masterful philosopher and politician, fought against Caesar, advised Pompey and smeared Marc Anthony. He has been an example to politicians and freedom fighters for thousands of years.